UX News
A look at what's going on in the field of user experience.
The ROI of design collaboration
, UX Collective - Medium
A quantitative approach to design ROI that puts collaboration at the center
A plea for the lost practice of information architecture
, UX Collective - Medium
How a mystery house attraction shows the perils of designing without an overall plan.I happened to have a Kinder Surprise dinosaur toy (well as least I think it’s a dinosaur?), don’t let information architecture go that way.Can you imagine what it looks like to build something purely incrementally without an overall plan? While a lot of older cities are like this, more recently there is a house that (supposedly) shows the results of this approach.
The Winchester Mystery House in San Jose California is described as the world’s largest home renovation. In 1886, the new owner (and newly widowed) Sarah Winchester inherited an 8-bedroom house and started renovations. By the time of her death in 1922, the house had mushroomed into a total of 160 rooms, 47 stairways and fireplaces, 6 kitchens and more. While there is a popular myth that the constant building was based on superstition — which inspired a 2018 horror film starring Helen Mirren — other accounts suggest instead that she was a strong-willed and particular homeowner, choosing both to eschew architects and redesign the house room-by-room, and to abandon work or have it rebuilt if it did not meet her standards. (I have had to add ‘supposedly’ to this post, as Nathan Shedroff pointed out that this attraction was perhaps not the house she built but in fact an attraction created after an earthquake… but I digress).
The Blue Screen of Death: have GUIs truly defeated iconoclasm?
, UX Collective - Medium
There’s nothing like an epic crash to remind ourselves of the robustness of text
Hey, LinkedIn: UX matters even for job searching
, UX Collective - Medium
An unsolicited case study on the productivity loss associated with LinkedIn JobsJob hunting can get really monotonous very quickly. In an effort to stay productive, I started working on pet projects inspired by Built for Mars. For those of you who don’t know, Peter Ramsey’s BFM library is a must-have reference if you want to improve your design thinking and UX psychology.
Having been in the job market for a while now, I use LinkedIn like it is Instagram. As my time on the platform increased, I began to notice how unintuitive and primitive LinkedIn Jobs and its subpages are. So, I decided to do some digging. What started as a Google search quickly turned into an interesting project as the designer in me was eager to come out of the shell.
First Click Times on Websites Versus Images
, MeasuringU
It’s a lot faster to mock up an image of a webpage than to build a working webpage. Using images as prototypes allows for quick iterations and testing by having participants click on locations as if it were a real working webpage or app.
But does an image used in a click test elicit the same user behavior as a live website?
UX Design : Product or feature !?
, UX Planet - Medium
UX Design : Product or feature !!!A lot of designers (me too) gets confused sometimes while creating a product and designing a feature. Product is something like a tangible/intangible thing in a market. Feature can be called as an USP(unique selling point) of every different tangible / intangible thing.A new day to begin with a wonderful article. This article is about how to differentiate while designing both product / feature, so let’s get started. Do share your valuable feedback in the comments section and if you like the article do share with your designer friends.What is a difference between a product and a feature ?Feature vs Product differentiationHow to differentiate between product & feature ?See, product is a complete offering that provides value to users and feature is a specific functionality or characteristic of a product that provides a particular benefit to users.
So, Can product be a feature ?Let’s see a most popular example of this product / feature debate happened between Drew Houston & Steve Jobs.What made Steve Jobs comment this :Market Perspective: Jobs saw Dropbox’s core functionality — cloud storage and file synchronization — as something that could be integrated into a larger ecosystem.
Brief Considerations on Design Topics: 23. Making Research Outputs Actionable
, UX Planet - Medium
I’ve written a number of articles on the topic of Research (read them here um, deux, drei, quatro, five), and its impact on the Design Process. However one of the aspects that I’ve been reading about in various blogs, including dScout’s “People Nerds” and Qualtrics’, pertains to the adoption and leveraging of Research outputs into palpable actions. These articles focus on tactics/strategies, that reinforce the value of Research, and reassure that User Researchers also communicate the value of what they produce. Here’s my impression on the topic, based of course in all the professional experiences I’ve had in the last 18 years.
Persistence and Repetition — If there’s something that I’ve learned throughout the years, is that evangelizing or educating teams on the value of Design, and of Research in particular, isn’t circumspect to a project that is successful and produces results. More on the “successful” part will come later. For Designers, and unlike their counterparts on the process, the challenge is always steeper, since for most organizations who are not Design Driven, or have a fair amount of Design maturity, this is a discipline that falls below all others when it comes to value delivered. And Research is right there with it. Part of the problem lies with the fact that stakeholders don’t realize to this day that Design and Consumer/Customer/User understanding walk hand in hand. Many organizations and their business leaders still operate under the guise that engineering can build anything, and that Marketing can wrap a nice bow around it, and sell the solution as the best thing ever (and certain adoption will soon follow). Doesn’t even register with this perspective if that solution is at all usable, addresses the problem(s), or the users can actually perform the tasks they need when interacting with it. For some organizations who have started to embrace Design as a key discipline, the results have been obvious, and that of course is tied with Research, how understanding clients/users behaviors evolves, therefore shaping expectations and even the solutions themselves. But those organizations are NOT the majority of the ones who exist in the market. For every AirBNB, Apple, Duolingo, there’s a batch of others that basically say: “Wait, we know better, and we tell users how to behave and how to enjoy what we deliver.” For Design teams in organizations such as these, this is where persistence and repetition are essential. Much like learning a new language or getting into a workout regimen, adopting Design and Research findings is something that requires repetition, exposure, and a cadence that produces an habitual behavior. And not just for successful endeavors. When something does go wrong, or a project needs to make a detour, those situations are just as important, as they reinforce where the gaps existed, and where Design and Research can further explore (therefore cementing their value). Creating weekly showcases, research forums presentations, speaking engagements on certain topics tied with product initiatives, are just a few endeavors that can further cement how Research and its findings can impact a Design process and the teams that are part of it.
The Importance of Clear Taxonomy in E-Commerce
, UX Planet - Medium
Using Lysnna to improve or create effective taxonomy systemsThis August, I’m attending a wedding, and having heard from friends about how challenging it can be to find the perfect dress, I decided to start my search early. Since it’s quite unusual for me to buy a dress — I’m typically a pants or trousers kind of girl — I decided to expand my search and try ordering from a foreign website (worldwide shopping has worked perfectly well for me in the past). All I know about the wedding is that it will be in pastel colors, with no more than 60 young guests, held outside, and I’ll probably be in heels. With no experience wearing dresses, my UX designer mode automatically kicked in as I began searching for the perfect wedding guest dress… or a suit? Hm…
What is taxonomy?Taxonomy helps organize content by using specific, pre-selected terms to label and describe it. These labels create metadata, which is data about the content, helping the website’s system manage everything efficiently. Although users don’t see this process, it ensures content is easy to find and access. For example, a clothing store might use tags like “Tops,” “Pants,” and “Accessories” to categorize products. This metadata helps users quickly find what they’re looking for, making the shopping experience smooth and organized.
UX project life cycles — is linear or iterative better?
, UX Planet - Medium
UX project life cycles — is linear or iterative better?It’s the battle of project management methodologies.Waterfall versus Agile — image by DALL-EIntroductionUser experience (UX) design doesn’t happen by magic. You need a process. A methodology.
Design and software development projects have life cycles — which span from the project conception to completion. And the two most common types of life cycle are linear and iterative.
The UX of Dating Apps and Websites (2024)
, MeasuringU
The current climate for dating apps is changing.
Dating app download rates are declining and users are experiencing dating app fatigue.
